


Have You Any Dreams You'd Like To Sell?

by DeadCaffeineJunkie



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst, Dirty Talk, Dream Sex, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Nightmares, Partner Betrayal, Rape in a dream, Self-Hatred, Voyeurism, dream betrayal, encouraging rape of significant other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:29:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26128813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadCaffeineJunkie/pseuds/DeadCaffeineJunkie
Summary: Joe struggles with guilt after dreaming of encouraging Keane to rape Nicky; there are no easy answers. In answer to a Kink Meme prompt.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nicky | Nicolo di Genova/Keane
Comments: 62
Kudos: 277





	Have You Any Dreams You'd Like To Sell?

**Author's Note:**

> Kink Meme Prompt: Joe has a very intense and vivid erotic dream starring Nicky and Keane. In this dream Nicky begs Joe to help him while Keane is violating him but Joe is loving it. He’s encouraging Keane and the more Nicky is struggling and begging for help, the hotter it is for Joe.
> 
> Joe feels immense guilt after waking up, not for the dream itself but his role in it. He starts to avoid Nicky, especially being intimate with him, because all he can think about is how he was totally into his husband getting raped.
> 
> \+ Nicky tries to have sex with Joe but Joe can’t get it up due to his guilt  
> ++ when Joe wakes up from his dream Nicky jokes it must have been a good one and wants Joe to share
> 
> * * *
> 
> Title from Dreams by Fleetwood Mac  
> Please let me know if any warnings are missing and heed the ones that are there

The smoke in the air made things hard to see.  
The sight of the ceiling was obscured in a haze. 

Joe sat up.

His vision tilted giddily like the footage from a dropped camera. 

When it righted he saw Nicky lying, prostrate and vulnerable under Keane’s knee on his stomach. The soldier had two fingers lodged down to the base knuckle in Nicky’s mouth, his other hand freely fisting his angry cock; the sight made something dark and ugly burn in Joe’s stomach.

“Hey!” 

Keane looked up at Joe’s shout. Nicky craned his head up as much as he could to see Joe and made a muffled shout at seeing him. Keane smirked, cruel and unbothered and taking his fingers back, prompting Nicky to gasp for air where he’d been half-choked.

“Joe!”

His cry was hoarse and short.

Keane shifted his position enough to take hold of Nicky’s shoulder and half-flip him to his front, pulling one of his arms around and behind his back. Nicky lay with his chest against the floor, Keane holding him there easily with one big hand pressing Nicky’s wrist down between his shoulder blades.

Nicky struggled for freedom but in an awkward position, his hips in a half-twist and his knees to the side, he was truly pinned. 

That dark feeling in Joe’s stomach slipped low when he saw Keane tugging the waistband of Nicky’s loosened combat pants down to his knees, Nicky suddenly writhing to try and break free. He was growling low and angry, but Joe knew Nicky well enough that he could hear the fear under the anger. 

Joe didn’t get up but leaned over, closer, reaching out along the floor himself in their direction and able to see the way Keane ran his free hand down Nicky’s spine.

"Yusuf!" the love of his life cried out for him desperately, his free arm stretched out over the floor with scant inches between Joe's fingers and his own. Joe would just need to reach forward a little to grasp hold of Nicky's hand, and pull him to safety; he could feel the strength in himself waiting to be used. 

Keane dropped his hips to rub his cock against the swell of Nicky’s ass where he was still lying tipped. Nicky's gaze remained fierce but trusting and certain of Joe's help, flicking down to Joe's hand and up to his face again. 

There was a long, slow moment of tension before it broke, the dusty air clearing as Joe sat back casually and comfortably with a wry smile, catching sight of Nicky’s confusion, that trust still there.

He looked up at Keane with a grin, a quirked eyebrow and a nod of his head towards his pinned husband with all the generosity he'd have used to offer the thug a slice of cake. "Do it." 

Keane straightened out Nicky's hips perfunctorily and shoved into him with a hyena grin while Joe laughed over Nicky’s broken wail, amused at the man’s eagerness. “That’s it, just like that.”

Keane’s hands were curled cruelly around Nicky’s hips as he fucked into him hard and deep from the get-go. Nicky seemed to overcome the shock enough to try to drag himself away but he couldn’t break away from Keane yanking him back into his thrusts.

“Yusuf, please!” Nicky implored, that trust still somehow there. “It hurts, please!” 

“Don’t stop, he likes it.” Yusuf told Keane, as though Nicky’s words had made the man pause. 

“Yeah, look at him squirm, he’s loving it.” Keane agreed, pressing bruises into Nicky’s hips.

Joe watched Keane lunge against and into the body of his husband again and again and he felt the insistent press of his hard on against the fabric of his pants. 

He reached down, still looking at Nicky, and squeezed himself through them, Nicky keening unhappily at the sight and turning his face down to hide against the hard floor. 

“Take it, take it you little whore, take it-” Keane snarled, making Joe’s cock twitch. 

Nicky groaned in pain and looked up again to Joe, always back to Joe, his eyes wet now from unshed tears. 

"Wait. Stop!" Joe cried out, and Keane did, still buried hard in Nicky’s body. Nicky slumped against the floor, his breath coming in hitches. "Yusuf..." he whimpered gratefully. 

Joe studied him for a moment and then looked back up at Keane. "Flip him over and fuck him on his back." 

Keane laughed as he followed Joe’s suggestion, unfazed by Nicky’s renewed attempts to fight away. He grabbed one of Nicky’s legs by the thigh, sliding his hand up to Nicky’s knee as he pushed it back towards Nicky’s shoulder, spreading his legs out wider until Nicky yelped in pain.

It seemed harder for Keane to push back in at this new angle and Nicky’s back arched in anguish at the first difficult, dry drag of Keane’s cock back inside him. The heel of his palm slid against the floor as he tried to push away with a high sound of agony.

"Fuck, he looks good struggling on your cock. Fuck, listen to him." Joe panted from where he’d reached into his own combat pants and was finally squeezing at his hard length, slick from his own precome.

Keane bit into Nicky’s calf where it was positioned near his mouth and Nicky bucked at the pain making Keane swear at the feeling. 

“He wants it.” Joe told him, and Nicky only whined in denial. 

“Dirty slut.” Keane growled, pushing the leg he had lifted down to the side against the floor. 

"Fuck him hard.” Joe encouraged, pulling himself out of his trousers so he could better stroke his cock. “Yeah, come on, come on, harder, hurt him, fucking rape him."

Nicky sobbed at that, and seeing him start crying made Joe groan in pleasure.

"Hey, push one of your fingers up there with your cock, he'll fucking love it. Shit, do it anyway."

Keane lined two of his fingers up and pushed them in alongside his cock on his next thrust, Joe swearing when it made Nicky make a high, hurt sound through his gritted teeth before he seemed to break.

“Joe, Joe, make it stop, make it stop, please Joe, please make it stop, make it stop!” He begged, frantic and wild and it was the last thing Joe heard before he jolted awake against Nicky to the feeling of coming in his pyjama pants.

* * *

“Good morning my love. Good dream?” Nicky murmured in ancient Genoese, lapsing back into his old tongue the way he always did in the mornings when he was sleepy and not quite awake yet. 

His hand was reached back behind him and he was lazily, gently squeezing at Joe’s softening sensitive cock through his pyjamas; Joe had probably woken him grinding up against him and Nicky had reached back to stroke him off like they usually did in that scenario and Allah, Joe was going to be sick. 

Nicky must have felt him shudder in disgust and taken it as a sign of lingering arousal because Joe could hear the smile in his voice when he spoke. “Really good dream. Want to share it with me?” he asked, arching back into Joe’s body from where he lay against Joe’s front.

It was the way they always slept; it made Nicky feel that he would be able to protect them, protect Joe, from anyone that might try to attack them in their sleep, but Joe liked it because he felt like he was protecting Nicky. Holding him close under his arm, wrapping around him securely, like that would prevent anyone hurting him and Joe had betrayed that position.

He was still half-stuck in that dream, his residual lust battling with horror at what he’d seen, what he’d encouraged to happen to his Nicolo. He’d wanted to see Nicky broken, wanted him hurt, and seeing Keane respond to his prompting had only made him harder in the dream. He’d come to the sound of Nicky distraught and desperate, like his pain was an aphrodisiac. 

And Nicky wanted him to share that, unaware that Joe had been aroused by his pain. How could he tell the man he loved beyond reason, the one lying in open trust beside him, that he’d enjoyed seeing his abuse, that he’d orchestrated it? 

Joe at up abruptly, avoiding making any contact with Nicky’s body. 

“Yusuf?” Nicky queried, confusion and concern clearing the sleep from his voice and Joe couldn’t handle it – he scrambled off the bed, kicking away the sheets and ducking from Nicky’s hand as he did so. 

He only just made it to the toilet in the en suite before he threw up, dry heaving and gripping the rim of the toilet seat in a white-knuckled grip. He heard Nicky call his name in alarm and reached a leg out to close the door behind him. He knew that Nicky wouldn’t intrude on his privacy if he wanted it, but he also knew that it would fret and worry him to be closed out of this moment. 

His sobs for air had little to do with his throwing up as moments of his dream came back to him in flashbacks; Keane’s fingers in Nicky’s mouth, the way he’d given permission for Keane to… how he’d suggested more ways to hurt the heart of his hearts, how he’d betrayed Nicky’s trust in him at every turn. 

It was that last that had him crawling into the bathtub and turning on the shower, purely so that he could better hide his crying from Nicky. He sat in the bottom of the thing, his knees held to his chest as it broke apart in cold hatred with himself. 

It was maybe twenty minutes, maybe more, until he was able to get up and change out of his wet clothes, drying his face of any evidence of his tears – and he was grateful for his immortality for once for draining away his swollen and red eyes as though they had never been – before wrapping a towel around his waist and going out to face his beloved. 

Nicky had woken and dressed while Joe had been in the shower and was now sitting on the edge of their made bed looking right at Joe with worry. His sidearm sat on the pillow behind him, and Joe could almost see him in his mind, flicking the safety on and off, checking the chambers, all the little things Nicky did when he was worried about Joe like this. Could see that stress in his eyes as when he’d been looking to Joe for help… 

His stomach turned and he held a hand to it, keeping his nausea down. 

“Yusuf, love, what’s wrong?” Nicky asked, still in that old language, the questions he must have about why Joe shut him out going unasked and Joe knew it was for his benefit. He felt like a coward at his relief at not being asked, at not having to explain. 

“Nothing my heart, nothing. Just a stomach thing.” He brushed off with a tight smile that wasn’t reflected in his eyes. “I’m sorry I woke you.” 

I’m sorry that I told a man to rape you. I’m sorry that I asked him to hurt you. I’m sorry I told him you enjoyed it. I’m sorry that I enjoyed it. He couldn’t apologise for any of those things because the thought of admitting his dream to Nicky made his heart freeze solid in his throat – he couldn’t bear to see that betrayed look in Nicky again.

Nicky was standing now and approaching him, the worry faded to a warm sympathy. “No apologies. Are you all healed now?” he asked, and of course he would just accept Joe’s words, he trusted him after all. 

“Still a little queasy.” Was all Joe gave him. He avoided Nicky’s unspoken offer to be held, avoided him altogether in fact in favour of pulling clothes out of his duffel bag and acting like his distance was normal. 

He could feel Nicky’s eyes on the back of his head as he set about dressing, turned away from the other man in a way he never did. 

“I’ll go make breakfast.” Nicky said quietly after a beat and Joe hated that the relief he felt outweighed the guilt as Nicky left.

The atmosphere in the safe house became awkward and stifled. For all that they were immortal lovers bound at the soul, the pair didn’t tend to touch a lot around company; they didn’t really need to anymore, not when they could have entire conversations with a glance and an expression, not when they could show affection with a gesture.

They’d grown out of the need to touch all the time to know the other was there. They were in the longest relationship in the world and had found that, centuries after the honeymoon period and after the comfortable symbiosis that came even within a normal human lifespan, there came an almost psychic connection. 

They knew each other so thoroughly that they almost lived their lives together in a ballet of movement, instinctive and practised. There was always a kind of energy between them, a tension that connected them like a spider’s web, sensitive to movement.

As unspoken and invisible as this connection between them was, it was still like a shout in the dark when there was something wrong. Andy had noticed a subtle tension in Nicky’s shoulders when she’d walked into the kitchen and found him cooking breakfast. 

She was sitting eating a bowl of cereal opposite Nile, who was sleepily drinking her coffee at the table, when Joe walked in. He greeted them with a ‘good morning’ and took his own seat at the table and Andy immediately knew that something had disturbed the connection between the two men.

She couldn’t quite make out the shape of the upset between them, a rare occurrence but not unheard of, but shook her head and turned her attention back to her cereal. She knew it was there, but neither of the boys looked injured or unduly distressed; she’d keep an eye out but leave them to it. 

Nile, for her part, was preoccupied with trying to wake up. Dreams of Quynh drowning under the sea still made her restless in her sleep, even though they were coming less frequently and for less time now. She didn’t mention them to the others because there was no point; no one could do anything and she didn’t want to torture Andy with the knowledge she already had, that Quynh was suffering on her own. 

She sat back when Nicky put a plate of scrambled eggs, toast and bacon down before her, offering him a smile and a ‘thank you’. Nicky gave her one of his subtle half-smiles in return and she might have seen that something was bothering him if she knew the team better, if she wasn’t so tired. 

Andy had begged off a cooked breakfast so Nicky put another plate sans bacon down before Joe and sat with his own in the seat beside him. 

He watched his beloved as the man pushed the eggs around the plate a little, noticed the way Joe had tensed up when he sat down. He picked up forkful of his own eggs but they seemed clotted and awkward in his mouth. 

Joe had taken maybe one or two bites before he put his fork down, pushing back from the table. 

“Joe?” Nicky queried softly, immediately, the concern in his voice putting a crack in Joe’s heart. 

“Not hungry.” He responded, trying for a reassuring smile but failing utterly. He stepped away from the table. “I’m going to lie down.” He informed, notably not glancing anyone’s way. He didn’t have to say that Nicky’s company wouldn’t be welcomed, Nicky could tell.

He knew that Nicky would be hurt by his exclusion, but he’d rather that than risk telling Nicky what he’d dreamed. What he’d done in the dream, how he’d liked it. He’d rather Nicky hurt a little than hate him a lot, and if that killed him a little more inside well, he could barely tell against what he already felt. 

*

Nile came to Andy in private later that evening to ask about the other two. 

“Joe hasn’t come out of the bedroom since breakfast and Nicky isn’t in there with him. What’s going on?” 

Andy had shrugged and told her that even partners of 900 years had the occasional spat or problem. She advised that Nile stay out of it and let them get on with it; she never knew the pair to go to bed angry and they’d work it out eventually. 

There was a tone in Andy’s voice when she said that which seemed to suggest that she’d intervene if they didn’t and Nile was left uncertain but placated. 

*

It was more usual for Nicky to need time out to decompress – he was more of an introverted soul than Joe’s usual extroversion – but it wasn’t unheard of for Joe to retreat to some quiet place by himself. He usually spent his time drawing or reading or getting lost in the meditative repetition of cleaning his blade; it was stranger for him to just want to lie in bed though, and stranger still that he’d deny Nicky a place beside him. 

Nicky hadn’t disturbed him since breakfast and had instead busied himself tidying the kitchen and the living room, cleaning his own weapons and then preparing lunch. He made a list of some things they might need to buy shortly and then spent some time sparring somewhat half-heartedly with Nile. He hadn’t been any less competent than he usually was, but Nile could still tell he was distracted, even after being thrown over his shoulder to the floor. 

From time to time Nicky would approach the bedroom he shared with Joe, looking like he wanted to push the door open and leaving each time without doing so. 

He was even quieter than usual, but while he’d been busying his hands with different tasks he’d been turning only one subject in his head over and over again. What could have inspired this mood in Joe?

He’d gone over his memory of the day before, trying to find something that might have upset Joe to this extent, examined their night and bedtime ritual to see if there had been anything there that he’d missed. The last week or two had been hard on all of them; trying to not address Andy’s mortality until she felt ready to do so, shuffling the group dynamic with Nile and without Booker. 

Joe had been sick with anger at Booker’s betrayal, but Nicky didn’t think that was the cause of Joe’s sudden withdrawal. 

They’d gone to bed last night like any other night, showered together, curled up in bed together with Joe behind him as always. They hadn’t had sex that night but Joe had woken Nicky that morning with the familiar feel of his hardness grinding in against the small of Nicky’s back. 

It wasn’t unusual for one or both of them to wake up like that, and it was often that Nicky had come awake with Joe’s mouth or hand around him, or that Nicky woke Joe rubbing his bare ass up against Joe’s hard on, ready and willing. 

So that had happened this morning and Nicky had reached back at Joe’s dreaming moan, letting Joe grind against him and just providing a little more friction. He’d been quiet, listening to Joe groan in pleasure in his sleep and wondering what it was he was seeing, wishing he could see. 

Joe’s orgasm had woken him and, Nicky realised, it had been then that everything had gone sideways. It was unusual for Joe, for any of them really, to get sick, but when they did their bodies usually healed themselves before it got really bad. Okay, they had died a time or two during the various plagues that had hit the world, normally as they tried to serve as healers, but something like food poisoning or a stomach bug should clear out of their bodies within minutes. 

That was another thing – if it was food poisoning it would have been from something Nicky cooked, considering that he usually took that job for himself. He liked looking after his family that way, liked providing for them all like that, but if Joe was sick because he’d overlooked the date on the chicken or something similar he’d have to kick himself. 

So what could have happened? Joe had eaten something that disagreed with him and it was because Nicky had been negligent while cooking. Or-

Or Joe hadn’t wanted Nicky’s touch on him while he was sleeping. They had standing consent between them for somnophilic acts like that, but maybe it wasn’t wanted this time? Maybe he’d missed something. 

Either way, Nicky was at fault, enough that Joe was avoiding him. 

*

Nicky had left Joe lunch in a plate in front of the closed door, knocking to tell him it was there. He had to collect it by the time dinner rolled around and it seemed untouched, like Joe hadn’t eaten at all. 

Joe didn’t come out for dinner either, and the mood at the table was awkward and tense. Nicky pushed his food around his plate much like Joe had done with breakfast that morning; Nile, who had been shooting looks at Nicky now and again, made as if to say something but was stopped by a sharp shake of Andy’s head. 

If Nicky knew they were having a silent conversation about him, he didn’t say. 

“Nile and I will do the dishes.” Andy commented when it looked like Nicky had no intention of eating. “You’ve been cooking all day.” She looked like she wanted to say something about Joe but was holding her tongue about it for the moment. 

Nicky understood that Andy was giving him the chance to go speak to Joe and he nodded with a quiet ‘grazie’ as he left the table. 

*

Joe had spent the day curled around his pain on the bed, lying as far away from the place where Nicky had slept as he could. He didn’t want the familiar, comforting smell of his partner near him, not while he could still see himself jerking off to the way Keane had brutalised Nicky, not when he could hear his own voice conducting Nicky’s torture. 

He’d gone over the dream again and again in his mind, shocked and disgusted at his actions, punishing himself for every time he refused to save Nicolo, every time he’d directed Keane to do harm to his love. 

He’d barely noticed the time passing, ignoring his hunger and the ache that being away from Nicky like this caused. He missed the brief touch of Nicky’s hand in his hair, how he could slip fingers across the soft curl of Nicky’s shoulder in a quiet caress, missed the air between them as they sat on different chairs and read different books. He missed Nicky. 

He said nothing now when there was a knock on the door and Nicky said he was coming in. He heard the door open and then close in succession, could feel Nicky’s hesitation before he made his way over to Joe on the bed. Joe wanted Nicky to reach out and touch him. He wanted Nicky to leave the room before Joe could try to put his hands on him. 

“Yusuf? Love? How are you feeling?” Nicky asked in Arabic just for him, his voice soft and hushed, the tone of worry and hesitation in there making Joe’s stomach twist. 

“I’ll be fine.” He said back shortly, unmoving, wishing Nicky would leave, hoping he’d come closer. 

Of course Nicky came to him. He felt the movement of the bed, the mattress dipping under Nicky’s slight weight as he came to join him. He felt the familiar warmth of Nicky behind him and the way Nicky’s hand hovered, unsure like it should never be, above his shoulder. 

He flinched when it landed and the breath Nicky took in as he withdrew his hand sounded like he’d been wounded. 

“Yusuf.” Nicky implored, but his voice sounded less broken than it had when he’d begged Joe for help in his dream, the way he’d begged and Joe had laughed at him for it. “Please. What’s going on?” 

Joe couldn’t respond, couldn’t say anything to that. How could he tell Nicky what he’d seen without losing him? 

Silence strained between them, Joe’s breathing hard and steady like he was concentrating on doing so, Nicky’s fluttering with anxiety and the raw pain of uncertainty. 

“If this… this is because of this morning, isn’t it?” Nicky asked. Joe lay still and felt cold, like all his blood had rushed out of his body – how could Nicky know? Had he spoken in his sleep? 

“I’m sorry.” Nicky said, and Joe couldn’t have been more surprised to hear it. “I just thought, whatever dream you were having, I thought I could help you through it. I didn’t mean to upset you or… I didn’t mean to touch you when you didn’t want it. Yusuf. I’m sorry.” 

Joe finally sat up at that, feeling sick again but this time because Nicky thought he’d done something to provoke this, sounding sick at himself the way Joe felt. 

“Habibi, no.” He turned and took Nicky’s hand. Nicky couldn’t seem to make eye contact, so Joe curled a finger under his chin, encouraging him to look up. “You haven’t done anything, luce dei miei occhi.” 

He hadn’t kissed Nicky in that dream and he couldn’t stop himself from leaning in now to press his lips chastely against Nicky’s temple in soft apology. 

“You haven’t done anything.” He said again. “There’s nothing you could do; I’ll always want your touch.” It wasn’t strictly true, but it was in that moment. “I’m just feeling a little under the weather. I’m sorry I’ve been distant today.” 

He hadn’t noticed how his strange behaviour had weighed on Nicky until he saw that burden lighten with his words. It made him ache and he reached out to take Nick in his arms and pull him close, seeking for a kiss that was granted. 

“Ana bahibik. Ya rouhi.” I love you. You are my soul. He felt desperate for Nicky in that moment, the same kind of desperation that he felt every time Nicky died and took a moment to come back. It felt ridiculous, suddenly, to deny himself any time with Nicky while they still had each other, and he pushed his hand up underneath the well-worn tshirt Nicky was wearing to clutch at the skin and bone underneath. 

Nicky made a helpless, shuddering sound into the kiss and Joe was overcome. Nicky’s hands were tugging at his shirt now and he broke apart only to pull it off and then similarly disrobe Nicky before they came back together, their mouths clashing as though magnetised. 

“Ana bahibik.” 

“Ti amo.” 

They gasped declarations of their love for one another against each other’s mouths, Nicky tugging his jeans open and pushing them down to his knees, shifting awkwardly to kick them off without breaking the kiss. 

Joe pulled his own sweatpants down but left them around his knees as he kissed Nicky, running the flat of his hand down over Nicky’s chest, over a nipple, down to stroke over his side, to catch hold of his hip. 

Nicky took hold of Joe’s hand and brought it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to Joe’s fingertips before he took one into his mouth, his eyes already dark with pleasure and fixed to Joe’s face. 

The dream he’d had jolted into the forefront at that gesture, Joe remembering Keane’s thick fingers gagging his beloved, how he’d stopped him only because he was impatient to see Keane fuck Nicky. 

His half-hardness softened immediately and he reared back from Nicky, detaching himself entirely until he was standing at the side of the bed. Nicky was still a little breathless, knelt up on the bed with his jeans puddled behind him on the mattress, still half-hard himself and reaching out to Joe. 

“I can’t, I’m sorry, I can’t do this.” Joe said, hectic and frenzied, pulling up his sweatpants hurriedly and all but bolting for the door. 

“Yusuf!” Nicky cried out behind him, startled and worried at once. 

“I’m going out, I’ll be back later.” He threw over his shoulder as he left the bedroom. He stalked straight past the kitchen where Nile and Andy turned to watch as he grabbed a coat from the stand by the door and left abruptly.

Joe was out for hours, well into the small hours of the night before he returned home, bringing the smell of the cold and his own distress back in with him. 

He stepped into the living area to find Andy concentrating on the pile of bladed weapons she was in the process of sharpening – they tended to keep their safe houses stocked with weapons, partially for security reasons but mostly because they needed somewhere to leave all their stuff; a lifespan of millennia inevitably caused a hoarding problem.

“Good walk?” she asked, carefully not looking up at him. 

He made an uncharacteristic noise in response, neither a yes, no or invitation for further conversation. He wandered into the kitchen looking lost, flicking the kettle on and waiting for the water to boil so he could get a cup of tea. 

The silence between them lay, not comfortable but spacious enough that it didn’t feel uncomfortable either. The kettle bubbled and Joe made his tea, moving over and leaning up against the wall between the kitchen and living room doorway, silently watching Andy’s slow, smooth, expert motions over the blade in her hand. 

After Joe had finished his tea and retreated to wash his cup out, he came back to the living room and stood, looking lost. He looked towards the hallway where the bedrooms branched off as if he’d see Nicky come round the corner.

“Nile and Nicky went to bed.” Andy told him, checking the edge of the blade, shaking her head and then putting it to the stone again. 

Joe didn’t know if Andy had waited up for him on purpose or if this was just one of the many nights their boss spent struggling with insomnia since she’d become mortal. He knew he didn’t want to talk. 

“Boss…” he began pre-emptively, his tone weary and warning. 

“I’m not going to say anything.” Andy said, heading him off at the pass. She finally looked up at him. “But you should probably talk to Nicky.” 

Joe could see that she’d caught the pain he’d failed to keep from flickering over his face, and she seemed to tense just a little as though she could tell this wasn’t like one of their very few previous arguments. She still didn’t say anything though; she might have if it was Nicky, who tended to fall deep into introspective silence when something was bothering him. 

Nicky would need to be coaxed to talk about it, but Joe had never been backwards about coming forwards. It was why he hovered for a moment more, why she seemed to pause in her work as though she was waiting for Joe to start speaking. Joe’s secret lay on his tongue like a hot coal and he had to swallow it back.

“Goodnight.” He said, with a wave of one hand. 

“Sleep well.” Andy answered, watching as Joe disappeared into the hallway towards the room he shared with Nicky. She sighed and stretched a little, cursing the mortal pains like muscle ache that didn’t just melt away almost before they could be felt, and set about finishing the blade she had on her lap before going to bed herself. 

*

Joe approached the room he shared with Nicky on cat’s feet, silent the way hundreds of years of practise had given him. The door to their room was ajar, that half-open entry a gesture of welcome when Joe wasn’t sure he deserved one. It made him ache for how it spoke of Nicky’s hope that Joe would come back home that night; leaving the door open made it easier for him to come in without disturbing Nicky. 

He toed his shoes off outside the bedroom door and stripped his top up and over his head before walking into the room with his shirt in his hand, bare-chested in his sweatpants, just the way he’d been when he’d left earlier that day. 

There wasn’t a lot of light coming in from the window, but between that and the light from the living room that bounced it’s way over, Joe could see the outline of Nicky’s body asleep on the bed.

He was possibly the only person who was able to walk up to Nicky while he slept and not be greeted with a gun to the face. They were so attuned to the sounds of each other moving that Nicky’s subconscious knew those particular footsteps meant safety. The trust in Nicky’s unmoving form against the backdrop of the memories of his dream threatened to bring Joe to his knees.

Nicky was lying in his usual space, closest to the door, and Joe caught sight of his longsword propped against the bedpost, the dark shape of Nicky’s gun perched on the pillow, unusual as it was usually tucked down the side of the bed frame.

Nicky had curled up, knees pulled up in a way that Joe only distantly remembered from the time before they’d become close, how Nicky would curl up like that and how Joe would watch the shadows the fire made of his body behind him. Since Joe had started sleeping spooned up behind Nicky, holding him close, Nicky’s body had let go of the need to wind up defensively in his sleep. 

Looking at Nicky and seeing it now stung the crack Joe had in his heart since he’d woken that morning. He could see his scimitar lying on the bed behind Nicky where he’d usually sleep and that sting was enflamed into a fierce, burning ache.

He stood and watched Nicky in slumber, saw the soft frown still on his face and the way he’d move a little restlessly now and again, another tic that was usually quashed with Joe’s presence against Nicky’s back. 

He looked fragile sleeping there, vulnerable in a way that Joe knew he never really was. Nicky was quiet, not weak, all ruthless efficiency and precise violence when he needed to be and a lot of that is what had drawn Joe to him in the first place, even as they faced off against each other on the battlefield. 

He’d seen this man cut down enemies with his longsword using such grace that he may as well have been dancing. He’d seen him move, quicksilver and sudden, in hand to hand combat, deadly with or without weapons. He’d seen Nicky take out two men at one time with a single bullet from metres away, and he also knew that Nicky still had a depth of kindness and mercy and empathy in him that even Joe had been unable to fathom; there was a strength in that which Joe didn’t think he’d ever obtain.

So he knew that Nicky was far from as breakable as he looked in slumber, but in his dream he’d been stripped of that strength. When they’d had that skirmish with Keane at Merrick’s lab, before Nicky had taken a gun in the mouth and lost the back of his head, they’d both been groggy and weak from the gas and the injuries they’d sustained when the wall had exploded.

Sure, Nicky’s area of expertise wasn’t physical strength – he didn’t have the weight or breadth that Joe himself had and certainly wouldn’t have out-bulked Keane – but Joe knew Nicky would have easily subdued the soldier if he’d been in better condition, that he himself would have been able to more effectively fight Keane too. 

Maybe that was why Joe had seen Nicky so helpless in his dream. Nicky hadn’t seemed physically able to fight back the way he should have been able to, and that just meant that his rescue had rested entirely in Joe’s hands.

And Joe had chosen to curl them around his dick and get off instead. 

He must have made a noise of distress or grief without allowing it then, because Nicky lifted his head, blinking awake with a little less of his usual immediate clarity; his fight or flight response wasn’t pumping adrenaline through his body because his body knew Joe and knew that he was safe. 

“Yusuf?” He queried needlessly, his voice thick with sleep and something that Joe didn’t want to identify as sorrow and pain but could. 

“Si, tesoro.” Joe said softly, crouching down and reaching his hand out like he wanted to touch Nicky’s face, holding still and then pulling it back at the last second. 

Nicky rested his head back down, studying Joe’s face with a quiet worry that made hate for himself burn in Joe’s veins. 

“Are you okay?” Nicky finally asked, his voice on the cusp of a whisper, speaking in Arabic the way he did for Joe sometimes, the way he’d done before.

Joe sighed, dropping his head but looking back up a moment later, unwilling to not look back at those beautiful eyes. “I’m sorry.” He said instead.

Nicky accepted the apology without question, but he wasn’t so easily distracted. “That’s not an answer.” He pointed out, reaching a hand out towards Joe with a hesitation that made Joe ache. Nicky was already smoothing out of his tight little curl, his body relaxing just at Joe’s presence, and it made Joe stand and move back because he didn’t deserve that anymore.

“Yusuf, ya hayati, don’t go. Please.” Nicky begged, sitting up in bed, his previously outstretched hand falling against the bedcovers. This wasn’t the desperate plea from before when Nicky had asked for answers; this was something more subdued, almost helpless like Nicky never was. As though Nicky knew he had no power to stop Joe leaving other than this soft request and worse, didn’t expect Joe to agree. 

It stopped Joe in his tracks like he’d been nailed to the floor. 

“I won’t ask.” Nicky said eventually, voice still hushed like they were in a church. “Please, just, come to bed?”

Joe closed his eyes as though in pain and slid down with his back to the wall near the bed, just out of reach if one of them tried to lean over unless they both did at the same time. 

“I can’t, habibi.” He forced out, his voice hitching halfway through the sentiment. He had to swallow thickly suddenly, something caught up in his throat that felt like his heart.

“I won’t touch you.” Nicky offered softly, the confusion and self-reproach and heartache like a shout in that small voice making Joe flinch against the wall, his hands curled into fists.

“It is I who doesn’t deserve your touch, amore mio.” He gritted out between clenched teeth, his heart rate racing in a way it rarely did, not even in battle, just at these times when Nicky was hurt or about to be hurt; Joe couldn’t take it. 

“What has happened that you would believe that?” Nicky couldn’t help but ask, sounding broken with grief. 

Joe covered his eyes with one hand and couldn’t stop the sob that escaped him, an exhausted wretched thing quickly followed by another. He heard Nicky swing his legs out of bed and stand, heard the sound of his footsteps moving to the bathroom, heard him running the tap while Joe tried not to cry and then heard Nicky’s padding back towards him on the floor. 

He breathed hard to stifle his tears, heard the soft sound of a full glass settling on the floor and looked up to see Nicky take a seat on the floor himself, near the bed so he still kept a distance from Joe. 

“Grazie, albi.” Joe said in a mix of languages, reaching out and sipping water like it would change anything. 

Nicky was quiet, his arms wrapped around his knees and his chin resting on his arms atop them, studying Joe with pained eyes. 

“Yusuf…” he said eventually, after a moment in which Joe collected himself a little. “…my life, my soul, love of my heart … how could there be a time where you don’t deserve my fingers on your skin? Or my mouth on yours? Or yours on mine? What could be worse than my people and I ravaging the city of Jerusalem? Yet you have forgiven me for it a thousand times over. How could you do anything that would mean losing my heart beating as yours?”

Nicky’s voice sounded raw as an open wound and Joe closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. 

“I saw that soldier, the one from Merrick’s lab, the one who shot you? I saw him in a dream last night.” He started. Nicky held still, listening. “He was… he had pinned you down. I watched him hold you down and you… you were calling out to me. You were calling for help. And I watched. I watched you struggle. And I watched him… touch you.” 

Each sentence was being torn from him in agony, like it was scribed into glass and cut him as it came out. Still Nicky watched and listened. 

“I watched him hurt you.” He confessed, his voice dry as ashes. “I told him to hurt you. I told him all the ways he should hurt you. I laughed at your pain and at seeing you so betrayed and I told him to rape you, Nicolo. I told him to rape you and I enjoyed watching as he did.”

The silence spiked in the space between them at Joe’s last word. He hadn’t looked Nicky in the eye once since he’d started relating his dream and he couldn’t look up from his clenched hands now. 

He had to fight not to flinch back from Nicky’s fingers as they came reaching out to ease the tension from his fists, stroking gently so that Joe couldn’t resist relaxing his hands and letting Nicky take them in his. 

“It wasn’t real, omri.” Nicky said in that soft, earnest, serious voice which lent an honest profundity to his words that seemed to elude the rest of them. “We’re not responsible for our dreams.” 

Joe shook his head. “But it made me come.” He said, wretchedly. “It wasn’t just the dream. I… reacted to it. To your pain.”

Nicky seemed momentarily thrown but he rallied easily, squeezing Joe’s hand in his. “Your body reacted to something your mind happened to throw out as erotic. I know you, Yusuf. I know how hard you’d fight for me if I was in trouble.” Nicky reached out and tentatively laid his palm gently against the side of Joe’s face – Joe didn’t twitch it off. “As vehemently as I’d fight for you.”

Nicky’s calm, measured reasoning was picking apart the knots that Joe had been carrying in his stomach and his heart and his head ever since he’d woken from the nightmare. He finally looked up to look Nicky in the face and slowly leaned in to kiss him, putting his own hand against the nape of Nicky’s neck to bring him in closer. 

He broke the kiss but still held Nicky close, their foreheads resting together as though they really could read each other’s minds. 

“Vita mia.” He murmured, low and fond and then slipped Nicky another quick kiss before sitting back, taking his hands and standing up with him. He rubbed a thumb against the soft, thin skin under Nicky’s eye like he was brushing away the tension he’d caused there. “Let me put you back to bed tesoro?” 

Nicky didn’t say anything. Just smiled, that small curve of his mouth, and let Joe do as he’d asked. 

*

Nicky thought that the whole thing had been put to bed when Joe put him to bed, but weeks later he wondered if his relief hadn’t been premature.

Joe had woken Nicky the next morning rubbing slow, lazy circles against his stomach and nosing against the back of Nicky’s neck. Nicky had turned his head towards Joe and they’d spent a chunk of the morning just kissing; after the strain of the distance between them the day before they both felt the need to reconnect with each other.

The tension in the house had clearly had drained away by the time the pair meandered out into the kitchen. Nile was standing over a pot boiling on the stove and looked a little as though she was considering going back to bed.

Andy was sitting back on one of the wooden kitchen chairs, legs crossed, cup of coffee in one hand and the local newspaper in the other; she arched an eyebrow at them over the top of her paper.

“Buongiorno Nile, Andy.” Nicky greeted, moving over to pour two cups of coffee from the still warm pot.

“Good morning.” Joe echoed sunnily, taking a seat beside Andy. 

“Morning.” Nile greeted around a yawn.

“You’re cheerful this morning.” Andy addressed Joe. “Good night?” 

Joe grinned back at her saucily in response, looking away as Nicky placed a mug of coffee in front of him. “Grazie amore mio.” 

Nicky sat down opposite Andy, nursing his coffee. Nile was beginning to regret deciding to boil an egg for breakfast rather than just pour out a bowl of cereal. 

That seemed to have put a line under the entire incident for everybody and they later parted ways for a while. Andy said she wanted to take Nile to some trainers around the world who could introduce her to sword-work – she thought Nile might want to expand her weapons skills above and beyond what the American military had taught her. 

Joe and Nicky had declined to accompany them, at least at first, citing a desire to tune up the safe house in Brasov after Copley spoke about the possibility of some work coming up for the team in Romania.

The house was a roomy but narrow house tucked away down an alley and gated, offering better defence than some of their other safe houses. The ground floor was mostly bare, with the living area on the first floor. It was dusty and some of the essentials they had stored there needed replacing, but there was no structural damage or damp and the furniture, though dusty, was more than usable. 

Nicky only realised that there might still be a problem when he was lying beneath Joe on the unusually large futon-esque couch, anticipating a move on from what had been heavy petting and some light under-the-clothes groping, when Joe sat back from him, panting. 

“I’m tired amore mio. Do you want to go to bed?” 

Nicky nodded and Joe was unable to resist leaning forward to run the pad of his thumb against Nicky’s bottom lip, kiss swollen and red. 

He was only half-expecting them to carry on where they had left off, but when Joe nestled up against his back and wrapped arms around him he still found himself a little surprised. He felt Joe’s body behind him gently relax and his breathing even out as he fell into sleep, but it took Nicky a little longer to join him. He couldn’t work out why he felt so unsettled, but before he fell asleep the first seed of uncertainty had been planted. 

It was later that week when, again, Joe broke away in the middle of a make out session saying he wanted a shower and would Nicky mind getting dinner started? He didn’t mind, but it occurred to him that in the few days over the week they’d arrived they hadn’t been intimate once. 

There had been a lot of kissing and some touching but nothing that had even advanced beyond feeling around under clothing. It wasn’t that Nicky wouldn’t have understood if Joe was going through a patch where he just wasn’t interested in sex – they’d both gone through something similar over the course of 900 odd years of relationship. Joe would usually have spoken to him about it before now if that was the issue though. 

His mind kept going back to Joe’s dream, despite the fact that he hadn’t been lying when he’d told Joe it didn’t really mean anything. He knew that Joe would never find pleasure in hurting him – there was nothing he was more certain of than Joe’s love for him. 

But there was still the possibility that the dream had reflected something Joe wanted. It couldn’t, wouldn’t, be to see Nicky defiled and injured so grievously; that just left seeing Nicky with someone else. Maybe some part of Joe just wanted to see Nicky with another man. 

It wasn’t as though they’d never invited other people into their bed with them, but it hadn’t happened in the last couple of decades – not since the 60’s maybe? – and maybe Joe just wanted something different. 

There was still the question of why Joe hadn’t just spoken to Nicky about it: maybe it had just been too long since the last time and Joe wasn’t sure how to ask; maybe Joe thought that Nicky would think Joe was trying to re-enact his dream. 

Nicky didn’t have time for ‘what ifs’ and ‘maybes’ though, not when it came to Joe; Joe was his soulmate, his other half. It was easier to just talk to him and remove any uncertainty. 

He waited until they’d had dinner and they were cleaning up, Nicky leaning up against the kitchen counter, drying while Joe washed. 

“Hey, Joe?” he started casually, eyes flicking up from the plate he was drying to Joe and back again.

“Yes my heart?” Joe responded, circling a sponge wand over the face of a plate. 

“What do you think about going out? Finding a club somewhere?” It wasn’t something they usually did, but it wasn’t unprecedented. 

“Fancy a dance, habibi?” Joe asked, an eyebrow raised but a smile on his face that was wicked and entirely Joe. He let the dish in his hand slide back into the soapy water in favour of reaching out and taking hold of Nicky at the waist and then taking his hand, sweeping him around and dipping him briefly as though they were waltzing. 

It made Nicky laugh fondly and lean up for a quick kiss. “I thought we could go out, maybe have a dance, get a drink… find someone we could get along with.” 

Joe tilted his head, giving Nicky a puzzled look. “Someone we could get along with?” 

Nicky shrugged, swaying back and forth absently in the hold Joe still had on him. “Thought you might want to see someone lay me out, tell them what to do, watch me be so good for you…” he murmured.

Joe wasn’t uninterested, but he was a little curious. “You’re always good for me.” He had to say, almost a throwaway comment. “Where is this coming from ya amar? We haven’t done that in a while.” 

Nicky could hear something that was almost nervousness in Joe’s tone, unaware that his suggestion was touching the still raw nerve that was Joe’s dream. He stroked a hand down Joe’s arm soothingly to try and still that anxiety. 

“I just thought that it might be something you wanted to see. I thought it could be something you wanted.” 

Joe held Nicky by his upper arms so that he could take a good look at him. “Why would you think that?” he asked, an edge to his tone that hadn’t been there before, something that was nearly panic.

Nicky reached out to Joe and placed a hand against his chest. “We haven’t had sex since we’ve been here. I just remembered your dream – I know you don’t want to see me hurt, but I just thought maybe you just wanted something different. Maybe you’d like to see someone else with me.”

Joe recoiled back from Nicky, his stomach roiling. “I don’t… no, Nicky, I don’t want to see anyone else touching you, I don’t want anyone else’s hands on you but mine.” 

Nicky didn’t reach out or move towards Joe, but it was clear he wanted to, uneasy with the distance. “I miss your hands on me.” He said softly.

Joe sighed. 

“Yusuf. Why won’t you touch me?” 

Joe rubbed hands through his hair in a sign of distress that made Nicky twitch to see. “I do. We were making out on the couch before dinner.”

Nicky was shaking his head. “You don’t want to touch me past my waist. We haven’t had sex; you know I don’t care if you don’t want to, but you seem to want to Yusuf. Right up until it comes to taking our clothes off.” He reached out but dropped his hand to the countertop before he could take hold of Joe’s hand like he wanted to. “Vita mia. What’s going on with you?”

Joe growled under his breath and paced in agitation before stopping before Nicky, his eyes on the slowly dissolving bubbles in the sink. “I want to, tesoro.” He said on a sigh, the edginess draining out of him and leaving only unhappiness behind it. “I’ll always want you. Just… every time I try to-” he shook his head, struggling. “I keep seeing another man touching you and I see you in pain and I just, I can’t.” 

Nicky stepped closer, tentative, put his hand against Joe’s back and felt relief when he wasn’t shrugged off. He moved close and wrapped his arms around Joe’s waist from behind, resting the side of his head against Joe’s shoulder. “It’s okay if you need time, ameli, but please don’t shut me out.” 

Joe sighed again and then turned to take Nicky into his arms, leaning back against the counter and bringing Nicky in close. Nicky hooked his chin over Joe’s shoulder and they stood in silence for a minute.

“I didn’t know how to tell you.” Joe said eventually. “It still bothers me that I liked watching you… that I liked watching you in my dream. And now, it just keeps coming back to me whenever I feel aroused looking at you.” 

Nicky turned his head and nosed at Joe’s neck. “It will pass habibi. And I’m not going anywhere.” He looked up with a sly smile and nudged his nose against Joe’s. “You’re stuck with me.” 

That made Joe huff a chuckle and cup the side of Nicky’s face to bring him in for a proper kiss. 

“Ana bahibik.” He murmured, sombre. 

“Ana kaman bahibik.” Nicky responded; it was as easy as breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> habibi - my love  
> luce dei miei occhi - light of my eyes  
> ana bahibik - I love you  
> ya rouhi - you are my soul  
> ti amo - I love you  
> tesoro - treasure  
> ya hayati - my life  
> amore mio - my love  
> grazie - thank you  
> albi - my heart  
> omri - my life/my darling  
> vita mia - my life  
> buongiorno - good morning  
> ya amar - my moon  
> ameli - my hope  
> ana kaman bahibik - I love you too


End file.
